There could be other things…
If you ever play a movie that the WD Chokes on, everything else you play afterward can be affected because it leaves the media renderer in a bad state; this usually requires a reboot (full power off / on) to restore.
So the key is to isolate which movie starts the problem. And you can’t assume it’s EVERY movie unless you actually do a full reboot between each test. And testing from USB is wise; it eliminates ANY kind of network issue.
I’ve never had any issues watching movies on even very fragmented drives… In fact, I don’t remember the last time (years?) that I defragged a drive.
Once you find that problematic file, please post the full TEXT output of MEDIAINFO for it.
